TERRAFORMING TERRA
We discuss and comment on the role agriculture will play in the containment of the CO2 problem and address protocols for terraforming the planet Earth.
A model farm template is imagined as the central methodology. A broad range of timely science news and other topics of interest are commented on.

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Earth's Oxygen Levels Are Declining And Scientists Don't Know Why

I suspect that a better explanation would be that the ice age induced temperature variation served to suppress the general robustness of the biome itself. When that ended recently, human meta agriculture and the effects of newly released glacial till served to keep it all suppressed and trending downward.

That can now change radically as human terra forming truly takes hold and serves to make both the land and ocean fully productive with teeming life.

We are actually at a bottom here of a million year trend line.
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.Earth's Oxygen Levels Are Declining And Scientists Don't Know Why

A new study shows Earth's oxygen levels continue to decline, a phenomena that has puzzled scientists. The study, published in Science by Princeton University professor Daniel Stolper, presents data measured from small air bubbles trapped in ice on Greenland and Antarctica.

Air bubbles trapped within ice provides clues to the atmospheric
composition at the time of "deposition" and can be analyzed for
paleo-oxygen levels. The study finds that over the past 800,000 years
the amount of oxygen found in the atmosphere has decreased by 0.7% and
continues to decline. Fortunately, the 0.7% decline is not something
that will or has caused significant problems for life on Earth. An
equivalent decrease in oxygen content would accompany a change in
elevation from sea level to 100 meters above sea level.

Why Are Oxygen Levels Declining?

As
with most things on Earth, oxygen levels are controlled by complex
global systems that tend to regulate and dampen large swings from the
mean. This presents a difficult task to pinpoint why exactly oxygen
levels have been declining for almost a million years. However,
scientists have several hypotheses to explain the steady and persistent
decline.

One
potential hypothesis is that a global increase in erosion rates has led
to a steady decline in free O2 within the atmosphere. In a process
similar to iron rusting (where iron binds with oxygen during oxidation)
weathering rocks can remove free oxygen from the atmosphere.
Specifically, pyrite, also known as fool’s gold, and organic carbon are
good receptors for oxygen during oxidation.

But what caused the increase in global erosion rates? The key is believed to lie in the rapid glacial to interglacial periods that
dominate the past several million years. As seen in the figure below,
the Earth has witnessed dramatic fluctuations in global temperature the
past million years. Growth and retreat of continental ice sheets
associated with glacial cycles is an incredibly efficient and
large-scale mechanism to erode mountains. Note the red dots to the far
right of the figure representing projected temperatures in 2050 and
2100, their historical significance, and unprecedented pace of increase.

An alternative hypothesis is tied to the global on-average cooling seen for the past 56 million years since the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM).
This prolonged cooling period has cooled the global oceans, allowing
them to hold more dissolved oxygen through increased solubility. Similar
to how a Coke goes flat quicker when warmed up compared to kept in the
fridge, liquids can hold more dissolved gas when cooler. This may have
led to progressively more oxygen dissolved into the Earth's oceans and
be responsible for the gradual decline in atmospheric concentrations.

As
you can imagine, these two hypotheses would not operate in a vacuum and
are interconnected to many other global systems from biodiversity to
volcanic activity. Thus the incredibly difficult task of piecing
together Earth's history and the processes that control it.

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About Me

18 years old, having cleaned out my HS library, I concluded the only ambition worth having was becoming a great genius. An inner voice cheered. Yet it is my path I have shared much to the Human Gesalt. Mar 2017 - 4.56 Mil Pg Views, March 2013 - Posted my paper introducing CLOUD COSMOLOGY & NEUTRAL NEUTRINO described as the SPACE TIME PENDULUM. Sep 2010 -My essay titled A NEW METRIC WITH APPLICATIONS TO PHYSICS AND SOLVING CERTAIN HIGHER ORDERED DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS has been published in Physics Essays(AIP) June 2010 quarterly. 40 years ago I took an honors degree in applied mathematics from the University of Waterloo. My interest was Relativity and my last year there saw me complete a 900 level course under Hanno Rund on his work in Relativity. I continued researching new ideas and knowledge since that time and I have prepared a book for publication titled Paradigms Shift. I maintain my blog as a day book and research tool to retain data, record impressions, interpretations and to introduce new insights to readers.